adult children – Speaking of Polygamy…

⁵Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.

⁶Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.

⁷Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

Proverbs 4:5-7 King James Version

I have a laundry system in place that really works…for me.

Before bed, I gather everything I can and put it in the laundry room. If I have 3 or more loads waiting I run a load of towels for a first wash.

I get up early and run the second wash on the towels or start a load of laundry. I’m usually done by about 11am.

This works for me because it keeps the machines available for semi-crisis and crisis situations like people vomiting with 13 extra loads of laundry, floods needing lots of towels (see toddler handbook), or a machine breaking down and someone needing to use one or both of mine. It keeps those 0-3 loads able to be put away in a timely manner and I resent dirty clothes, so it helps me have a clear head and not feel like it’s all looming over me.

I also have small hacks in place like 8ish laundry baskets which stack, do double duty as transportation up and down the stairs and they fit perfectly in IKEA Kallax furniture, so they are also storage totes.

There, that’s enough backstory.

I went to visit my daughter last month in another state. I went to visit my daughter last month in another state with the intent to help out while my son-in-law recovered from surgery.

While there, I intended to help get her laundry caught up, so I applied my laundry system to her situation which left me with a huge pile of clean unsorted clothing. I created a daunting overwhelming task.

So, I did what moms sometimes do and found myself extolling the virtues of my laundry system. Even going so far as to suggest some products that really work for me like the four-dollar flexible laundry baskets from Walmart – I love them.

Then I shut up and I listened to my daughter.

She’s smart, she’s capable, and she has reasons for the things that she does. She has her own system in place. She is a once a week laundry girl. Her husband works from home and she leaves the house daily which results in too many times laundry left in machines for too long. Her system is to have each person have their own basket and each person has their own loads. This keeps things organized and entire loads go back to one room. This keeps her from having a huge pile of unsorted clean laundry. My failure in overlaying my system on hers.

It was huge for me to have a case in point that you give help based on what is wanted within the method and within the vision that is currently in use. This takes listening and understanding why things are the way they are. It demands respect and honor of someone else’s differences. It doesn’t need to impact how you run your own life. If you take judgment from it, that’s on you.

So of course I applied all of this to my plural marriage.

The mistake sisterwives often make with each other is in applying what they would do in any given situation to what the other is currently doing.

For example, when adding a wife in and welcoming her into their existing home, some first wives do a whole I’m going to decorate my new sisterwife’s space deal, when the better option is to prepare a blank slate and then give the incoming wife the time, and resources to create what she wants for her space.

The same issue can come up with a new addition attempting to make changes to established patterns. Seek first to understand. Then when full understanding is created and respect is given, you can decide if what you would like to change is doable or even still applicable.

I went home after 6 days, my daughter’s laundry caught up, deeper relationships between little sons and little grandsons formed, and with a whole new appreciation for my beautiful and capable daughter.

Integration is hard stuff. We have to be willing to not demand that someone else justify why they do what they do. We have to not take judgment when someone does something differently than we do and also not to give judgment because it is different. We have to give space to allow others their agency. Particularly, when we are in a position of helper, we need to allow their system to run unimpeded.

Assuming good intent and competence is key.

Assuming good intent and competence is key.
Melissa

“Are you the groom’s sister?” I am asked by a fellow wedding guest.

“No.”

“Are you a friend of the bride?”

“Nope, not a friend of the bride.”

Cue an awkward silence while she decides whether to keep guessing, and I anticipate my ultimate answer, which will almost certainly be a surprise to her.

“So… Where do you fit in? How do you know the bride and groom?” she presses. It’s such a simple, natural question, so why do I cringe?

I give her a big, friendly smile and answer directly and without hesitation: “You know the groom’s mom? I’m her sisterwife.”

Her “Ohhh” response plus her body language tell me that this answer is, indeed, not what she was expecting. I give my attention back to the two babies I’m in charge of: one mine, the other my sisterwife’s.

The woman’s husband had commented on the little ones a few minutes prior: “Are they both yours? They look too close in age to both be yours.”

He was right, in a way. The babies are too close for both of them to have come from my own body; Melissa got pregnant when I was 6 or 7 months along in my own pregnancy. At their current ages, they’re obviously not twins, but that might change in a few years.

But he was also wrong, in a way, since I claim all 7 of our family’s children as my own. So to answer the question “Are they both yours?” is not so easy for me.

My sisterwife Melissa has 3 grown children from her first marriage. I’m not particularly close to them, unfortunately. Early in Melissa’s and Joshua’s relationship, when her first batch of children were teenagers, I dared to fantasize about being a second mother to them. Alas, it wasn’t in the cards. However, the youngest son is friendly with me, and he invited me to his wedding in southern Utah.

Here’s a question for you: What should be done when a Christmas card, a graduation announcement, or a wedding invitation is being sent to a family with more than one wife?

Melissa and I have cracked the code.

Think about this: After you open the envelope, read the card, mark your calendar, and make a note to yourself to get a gift, where do you put the card?

On your fridge, of course. And you leave it up there until it’s no longer relevant.

That common habit is the basis of our rule of etiquette when mailing things to families with multiple wives.

If the wives live separately, you mail them each their own wedding invitation. If they live together and share a kitchen, just send one invitation. Easy enough.

But if they live at the same address and have their own kitchens (and hence their own refrigerators), here’s what to do: Mail to the household the same number of invitations as there are kitchens. That way, each wife gets to put the card up on her fridge. Go ahead and mail both of them in the same envelope and save yourself a stamp.

Melissa’s son understands this concept, so I got my own copy of the wedding invitation.

I found this sweet and thoughtful. I also realized that if he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have known for sure whether I was meant to be included in the invitation. His giving two copies of the invitation to our household made it clear that I was, for sure, invited.

Back to the wedding guest who found out I was the sisterwife of the groom’s mother. After she recovered from her initial shock, she approached me. Melissa was getting herself ready for the wedding ceremony, and I was tasked with getting her reluctant preschooler dressed in his handsome ringbearer suit, complete with a bow tie and suspenders.

I was also taking care of Melissa’s infant and my toddler, so my hands were reasonably full. The kind wedding guest helped me, all the while chatting in a friendly manner and showing that she was fine with what I’d told her. Never knowing what to expect when someone finds out about my polygamy, this experience was nice.

The wedding was one I wouldn’t have attended if I wasn’t a polygamist.